Milton's Howard 500 a fresh look!

TFR Howard 500 TP conversion for FS2004 is now 1024 resolution. Will be uploaded sometime today, but may not be available until Rami approves it. Also, prop fix (lighter alpha) will be included for the both versions. Interior will be updated as soon as I have time. The interior has unique panels and colors, so the detail work will be the same quality. -TuFun
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Props with lighter alpha...

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Tufun have you or anyone else here been experiencing extreme terrain texures being blurry which even obscures all autogen features in FS9 in connection with the installation of your modified Howard 500 model?

Just after installing your version of the Howard, I immediately began getting extreme widespread terrain blurries for as far as the eye could see in almost every direction. I changed models and went to Milton's model and got the same. I went to the C-150 and the same.


I opened up yuor zip to identify all the files then went into FS9 and removed the your files, the Howard 500 aircraft file, the effect file and the three effect textures, and the R2800 pop pop file from the FS9/Sound file. Then all returned to normal in FS9.

Now I don't know for sure if there is something in your Howard 500 package, but those blurries disappeared when I took them back out of FS9. I am not an expert on file writing, and can't even imagine what would be causing such a conflict, but it does appear to be something in your plane's package that was causing the blurred terrain conflict. I don't even understand how or what could be causing it.

Additionally, just after installing your Howard I immediately lost visible start-up smoke, as in there were no texture for the smoke. It was ghost smoke.

I could be entirely wrong and it may have nothing to do with your files and I feel sure that if it were it was not done intentionally by you. Mainly I am just trying to pinpoint where and why the problem cropped up. To identify what is causing it.

Have you or anyone else here that has installed your Howard 500 version files experienced the terrain blurries problem? So far this terrain blurries problem has been experienced by Falcon and by myself. After removing your files it cleared it up for me and in which after seeing Falcon was having the same blurries problem with the terrain textures and autogen, I suggested to him to try to remove your plane and all it's files to test to see if it cleared up his problem. So far I believe he has gotten around to trying it yet. But I felt I did need to bring it up on ththis thread to see if you or anyone else has experienced this terrain blurries problem.

It is possible it may not have anything to do with your Howard 500 version files and may be tied to something else, but I do know that when I removed your files out of FS9 it did clear the problem up (so far).
 
Yes - but it's a really easy fix. look for the DXT fixer program at avsim.com, run that on the howard folder. Problem solved!
 
EMatheson said:
Yes - but it's a really easy fix. look for the DXT fixer program at avsim.com, run that on the howard folder. Problem solved!
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Hi there,

I can't find this program at Avsim.com using the search and extended search options. Do you know what the official name of the DXT fixer program is and perhaps also who the author is?
Thanks.

Cheers,
Maarten
 
Update: Just tried this nifty little program and found the original Howard 500 fuse_L.bmp and pilotseatleather_L.bmp files are bad. Running this program will fix it, but someone will need to test it in FS9. Run the program on all aircraft textures (passenger, cargo, and TP).
 
Maarten said:
Thanks a lot! First of all for the beautiful repaint. Secondly for your link.


Cheers,
Maarten
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Glad that program did the trick. Looking at those files you would not know that it had issues. I left the L files as they were from the original Howard. These issues didn't show up in FSX.

Let me know if these files fixes the issues, if ok, I will upload the fix on SOH.

Fixed files download: https://www.box.com/s/u29cfk3lkd1d60tp1cgt


 
'OK now I remember', ...There was a very similar problem with the FS9 ground textures going blurry that had to do with Joe Binka's "Shakey Jake" Cessna 195 aircraft textures.

About completely forgot about that incident.

Glad ya'll zero'd in on the problem so quickly.
 
phantomx1 said:
'OK now I remember', ...There was a very similar problem with the FS9 ground textures going blurry that had to do with Joe Binka's "Shakey Jake" Cessna 195 aircraft textures.

About completely forgot about that incident.

Glad ya'll zero'd in on the problem so quickly.
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Found a bunch of other textures that were bad using DXTfixer. I was wondering why some other aircraft and ground textures was giving my fits. Good program to find those issues.
 
And all this time I have been "fixing" these texture issues manually. I believe the DxtFixer works for FS9 as well as FSX.

BB686:USA-flag:
 
Ted, I sent you a PM on this, but for those who are having issues with the Howard (loss of aircraft textures and serious blurries), remove the effects texture "fx_1" and see if the problem goes away. That seems to be the offending texture and as soon as I removed it, the aircraft textures returned and the problem of intense "blurries" and loss of autogen were gone.
 
falcon409 said:
Ted, I sent you a PM on this, but for those who are having issues with the Howard (loss of aircraft textures and serious blurries), remove the effects texture "fx_1" and see if the problem goes away. That seems to be the offending texture and as soon as I removed it, the aircraft textures returned and the problem of intense "blurries" and loss of autogen were gone.
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This is phantomx1 falcon.

I may be inclined to agree with you about the fx_1 file.

I spoke too soon in my last post as I hadn't tried a converter on all the texture files in TFF's package. Then I downloaded a texture batch converter from Flightsim and re-installed TFF's package and went by the instructions to use the converter and converted all of the textures in the aircraft and the effects textures. The converter program said it could not handle converting fx_1.

I then flew TFF's plane and had blurried terrain textures and FS9 lock up on exit.

I then removed all of TFF's package, except I left the fx_1 effects texture file in FS9 because that was the only fx_1 file I had because on the initial installation I elected to use the TFF one and it overwrote my original one.

I then went back to fly Milton's Howard and I still got the terrain texture blurries and FS9 exit lock up.

Then I removed the remaining fx_1 texture from FS9 and then flew Milton's Howard and all went back to normal. So even though it may have been other textures in TFF's package or maybe even other type file issues that may have been causing the problem, I know for a fact that there was something about the fx_1 texture, which was the only one left in FS9, was indeed causing the problem.

When I run the DXT batch converter on fx_1, which it will not process, it displays the message: "Unsupported bitmap image format." And that is the only texture file that the batch converter would not process.

However, even though the fx_1 texture may be the culprit, there is the possibility other of the textures may be cause too.

Also that particular fx_1 file had given me textureless start up smoke. I dug around in my files and found an older fx_1 file to put in FS9 and it fixed the ghost startup smoke.

Definitely something about that fx_1 effects texture file!
 
Yep Phantomx1. . .I pulled everything related to the Howard 500 out of FS9 when I did the testing and put one thing back in at a time. The aircraft itself didn't affect it, nor did the single soundfile or the effect file itself. It was only when I added that one texture file (fx_1) that everything went south on me.:salute:

UPDATE:if you have DXTbmp, load the texture file "fx_1.bmp" and save as something other than DXT5 16bit. I saved it as a 32bit 888, sent it back to the effects/texture folder and no more problems.
 
Hmmmm... there is already an fx_1 texture file in my textures folder, which appears to be in 32bit format. (Just guessing at this point) I don't think any of the scenery I have re-installed uses that texture. Alphasim's superb F-105D "Thud" has a texture file that looks identical to the one being discussed... (Except you can SEE the 8 little fireball effects in the file, as opposed to not seeing them in the texture folder, without running them through DXTbmp).

I had this happen to my FS9 when I loaded and flew the Howard 500, but when I removed the model and all it's parts (as you spoke of, Falcon), all was well. BTW I am starting with a fresh install of FS9, and have only added some of my scenery mods and payware packages. No planes yet other than the payware Alphasim F-105D. FS9 comes with it's own fx_1 file, interestingly enough.

The Howard 500 will go back in... less the fx_1 texture it comes with, hopefully this time I can get further than five miles outside the apron of the airstrip....:salute:

BB686:USA-flag:
 
Just checked it myself, fx_1.bmp is in DXT5 format 16bit. That's why I had no issues with it in FSX. Thought it was just a standard file used by both sims. I think I will just stick with developing in FSX, private release only. Sorry guys for all the trouble.
 
Probably just an oversight, TuFun.... I wouldn't take it on the chin. Happens to the best of us. This is not the first time I've heard of these kind of issues here in the forums. I have every intention of flying your beautifully restored Howard 500, and I'm sure that others do as well.... given the effort that everyone here has taken to find the "hiccup" and fix it.

BB686:USA-flag:
 
Hey, don't worry, TuFun. It happens to all of us, even the people that should know better... how many SPs do Payware projects tend to get? (I've paid for some with up to 5 service packs before...)
I myself released a compilation of sceneries a while back - and utterly screwed it up. Half the agn file ended up corrupted and objects didn't work... didn't make the original authors whose permission I'd gotten too happy! Ended up recompiling and uploading from scratch... and that was far less complex than your work on the Howard 500!
 
Oh, HELL no.....

TuFun said:
Just checked it myself, fx_1.bmp is in DXT5 format 16bit. That's why I had no issues with it in FSX. Thought it was just a standard file used by both sims. I think I will just stick with developing in FSX, private release only. Sorry guys for all the trouble.
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TuFun, this is such a small thing, nothing to worry about. There are tons of updates to fix minor things with models and paints all the time!

Not only do I appreciate the fine redo of the Howard you did I also REALLY enjoyed all the updates you posted along the way. It was really neat to see this come to completion.

I myself am not good (let's face is, I Suck with a capital S) at repaints and modeling which is why I never released any of my stuff, but you have real talent. I was not aware of the alpha issue and I bet most people weren’t.

Thank you for the great repaints!

And please keep it up, especially for FS9!
 
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